Travel & Culture

In many ways, my search began on YouTube, that ubiquitous archive of modern life in all its glamour and grime. I am a strong believer in the process of the “YouTube wormhole,” a spiritual practice (should you choose to view it as such) in which a person watches a video and then selects a subsequent…

In 2004 I apologized to the Peace Corps for being raped, because I believed them when they told me it was my fault. The messages I received during my counseling from Peace Corps have stayed with me as little reminders, embedded in my psyche. Don’t tell people you’d been drinking the night you were attacked….

On a 10-day retreat in India, I ended up literally facing my own garbage. It has changed me deeply. Here's how it happened and one practice I use to heal my relationship with the Earth. *** To reach the small Himalayan river to perform our daily ritual, I crossed through the ornate metal gate and down…

Once upon a time, and a very long time ago at that, an ancestral ape climbed down from the trees, stood upright on two back legs and walked out of the forest. I often wonder why she did it. Perhaps it was an act of survival, a search for fresh water or tasty legumes. Did…

Note: Last month, we profiled Angela Maxwell, who’s spending the next five years walking around the world solo. We’re excited to share occasional dispatches from her journeys on the road. Here’s her first installment, from Australia: I knew from the moment I took my first few steps that there was no going back. And…

On May 1, 2014, Angela Maxwell and her boyfriend celebrated their two-year anniversary in Bend, Oregon. On May 2, she left her boyfriend, her thriving coaching business, and her happy home life to spend the next five years walking around the world. “My life has never been as delicious as it is now, but I…

Often I’ll judge a book by how sad I am to see it end. As I neared the last pages of Rafia Zakaria’s new book, “The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan,” I found myself slowing my pace, not yet ready to give it up. But the sadness was more complex than usual. It…